1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of managing a maintenance work on a medical equipment. The present invention also relates to a maintenance system which manages a maintenance work on a medical equipment.
2. Discussion of the Background
When a medical equipment such as a medical imaging apparatus or a laboratory equipment is installed in a medical facility such as a hospital, a maintenance service contract may be agreed between the hospital and a medical equipment supplier such as, for example, a medical equipment manufacturer, a medical equipment sales company, or a maintenance service provider. The maintenance service contract is typically agreed for the purpose of maintaining a quality and a performance of the medical equipment at more than a certain level, in consideration with a request from the medical facility and presuming a future operation condition of the medical equipment. In a typical maintenance service contract, it is agreed to conduct predetermined maintenance works at predetermined intervals as periodic services. In practice, the periodic services may be conducted based on a maintenance service instruction manual prepared in advance. That is, maintenance works instructed in the maintenance service instruction manual may be conducted by a maintenance staff.
It may be a recent trend that a guarantee according to the maintenance service contract can be differentiated in accordance with a contract fee. What is guaranteed includes, for example, a maintained level of the quality or of the performance of the medical equipment. For example, an image quality is guaranteed at more than a specific quantitative level. Also, for example, it may be guaranteed to keep an actual operating time (or an uptime) of the medical equipment in a time period when the medical equipment should be operated in the medical facility to be more than a predetermined time period.
In some cases, it is difficult for a regular maintenance staff to conduct the maintenance works to meet the agreed guarantee level. In this case, an expert engineer may be asked to travel to the medical facility. In another cases, when a part, an accessory, a component, a unit, and/or the like (hereinafter referred to as a part) used in the medical equipment has become degraded or deteriorated so that the agreed guarantee level cannot be met, it may be necessary to replace the part with a new one. If such a new part is not in stock in a local service office where the maintenance staff is usually located, it may be necessary to send the part by air so as to supply the maintenance staff with the part as soon as possible. Therefore, it has largely cost to reduce time to meet the agreed guarantee level in a prior art.
One of solutions for the above problem is a remote maintenance system using a public communication network such as a telephone line network or the Internet. According to the improvement of information communication networks, the remote maintenance system is more often used to analyze the status of the medical equipment. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. PH06-62130 describes that a log, a set-up file, image data, and the like stored in a medical equipment installed in a medical facility are read out from a remote maintenance computer through a network in response to an error (or a failure) notice from the medical facility. Based on the read-out information, the error may be recreated and the reason of the error may be determined. Accordingly, since it has become possible to cope with the error in advance of a periodic service by using the remote maintenance system, it may become possible to reduce time in an actual periodic service. In addition, a cost may also be reduced for the periodic service.
However, the maintenance works to be conducted in the periodic service have been limited to those determined in a maintenance service instruction manual prepared in advance, as described above. In other words, the maintenance works have not been conducted in light of actual conditions of the medical equipment such as, for example, the frequency of using the medical equipment, an environmental condition change in the use of the medical equipment, and/or a part replacement for improving a characteristic of a part used in the medical equipment.
Each medical equipment is usually used in a different condition from others, particularly when it is installed in a different place or in a different medical facility. Therefore, as long as the maintenance works are conducted in accordance with a conventional maintenance service instruction manual, it is difficult to take an action for the deterioration of functions and/or qualities caused due to the individual condition of the medical equipment. Even if the remote maintenance system is introduced, such an action may be passed over or not considered sufficiently. Accordingly, even if the conventional periodic service is conducted, the medical equipment may be subject to an unexpected problem such as, for example, an error occurrence and a breakdown. This results again in requiring a large cost in order to fix the problem.
Further, if it is a full-time maintenance staff for the medical facility or a highly-experienced maintenance staff, such a maintenance staff may manage to conduct maintenance works in accordance with conditions of the medical facility, using his or her skills based on experience and information obtained individually. However, if it is not a full-time maintenance staff for the medical facility, a less experienced maintenance staff, or a maintenance staff for a wide variety of medical equipments, it may be necessary for the full-time maintenance staff for the medical facility or the like to clearly instruct specific maintenance works or a benchmark of conducting a specific maintenance work to the less experienced maintenance staff or the like.